The figure made of bees unfurled into a yellow and black living hurricane of buzzing dots, spiraling around me.

“Lower your weapon! Unless, you WISH TO BURN, Overseer.” Delta’s angry voice echoed across the swarm.

The armacus-holding hand fell. Kliss started to tremble as bees began to land on her body, not stinging her yet.

“P-please… I just want to know the truth,” she pleaded. “I need to know… what I’m signing up for. I can’t trust you if you won’t tell me who you are…”

I looked into her eyes filled with desperation, pain and fear.

“Who are you?” She whispered once again. She was probably terrified that I was an aberration.

“My name is Dante Alan Skyisle and I’m not a monster from the Astral ocean!” I addressed the trembling redhead. “I have no desire to devour souls! I’m not an aberration or whatever the hell it is you Equalizers fear… I’m not a ghost driven by endless hunger... I simply know more!"

Kliss gulped.

[Delta, make me look… imposing!] I ordered.

Bees landed on the windows, covering the stained glass with their fuzzy bodies and the room slowly dimmed.

A halo of yellow-orange flames woven from fiery stingers ignited, spinning behind my head. I saw myself in third person through Delta’s Infoscope. I didn't look like a skinny boy, but something else… something otherworldly, like the paintings of Orthodox saints in the Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow.

It struck a chord of inspiration in me.

I spoke with my voice as a twelve year old and the voice of my sixty-year-old self simultaneously. My voice resonated across the hurricane of bees, focused on Kliss from all directions. I added more modulations to [Vox Colony], create echoes of rising and falling whispers… making myself sound just like Omniscience.

“I posses vast knowledge from beyond the stars of Novazem. I have an understanding of the inner workings of the universe and its laws. I know mathematics far more advanced than anyone in Skyisle even dares to dream about.”

Kliss' eyes were open wide in astonishment. Her armacus confirmed my words as the absolute truth, burning every syllable into her mind.

“I know how to break Vows," I asserted in an echoing, cascading, divine-sounding speech.

She could not tear her eyes away from my face.

I formed a ring of microscopic runes for "light" within my irises, making them ignite with sparkling silver radiance, looking at the scene entirely through the Infoscope.

"I can design new spells. I can create life." I said as my eyes lit up from within. “I’ve talked to a God!”

"Goddess," Kliss whispered. She fell to her knees, making the sign for Equality with her fingers.

"I will tell you who I really am, in time," I affirmed. "If you prove yourself to me. If you can learn to trust me… based on my deeds and not on what you think I am."

The awestruck Overseer nodded.

"I swear it to you now - I will find a way to free you and everyone in Skyisle from Vows!” I declared decisively. "I will search for, design spells that will help liberate humanity from Vows and Phantoms alike, so that no other teenager would have to kill a child again!"

Kliss shuddered, tears sparkling down her face.

I thought of Medieval knight ceremonies from tales of Kievan Rus conquerors I had read about as a child. Of Vladimir the Great, the Prince of Novgorod and ruler of Kievan Rus and his Vitiyaz knight-errants. The Russian word “Vitiyaz” was derived from Scandinavian “Viking” as Vladimir the Great took Novgorod with a legion of warriors assembled from the Kingdom of Norway. I thought of dedicated knights declaring their allegiance to a higher cause.

“Will you be my knight, Kliss Elisa Cessna?” I asked Kliss as she stood on her knees in front of me. “My Vitiyaz, that will aid and protect me not because of a Vow to your Goddess, but because you choose to?”

I offered Kliss my hand. Her armacus told her that I believed in every word I told her with absolute conviction.

She took my hand, her eyes shining. Here before her, stood an impossibility made incarnate. Someone who offered her potential freedom from the divine chains that were tearing apart her soul. Someone who spoke to a god.

“I… I will,” she nodded. "I… promise."

The shining runes faded from my eyes and Delta dispersed the halo, pulling the swarm apart.

A few hours later, the Overseer and I stood at the edge of Skyisle, looking out at the Valley of Death, slowly having made our way out of the village.

Enormous moss-covered rocks that were likely deposited here by passing glaciers millennia ago lay around us. Patches of small trees grew atop them, swaying ever so slightly in the wind. Below us, in the cursed Valley poisonous clouds broiled, shimmering ever so slightly with unearthly tones.

"What do you know about the magogenic fault?" I asked her. "How did it happen?"

"One thousand, one hundred and seventy two years ago, there was a city here," she replied with a somber tone. "It was one of many Citadels that belonged to the Almn-Inian Empire."

"Almn-Inian?" I asked. It sounded like a longer version of Alanian, but the pronunciation was long and deep-sounding, like a distant bell toll echoing in the icy fog. When Kliss said the word it was almost as if she was singing it like an Orthodox psalm.

"Their word 'Almn' meant 'All-mighty'. The word 'Inian' meant 'The Masters of Souls'. The Inians were described in the Cessna Academia of Magic library archives as... Necromancers," she said with a shudder. "In their desire for Immortality and dominion over humanity they had forged a permanent gate to the Astral Void, bringing back their own dead servants, Arch-Mages and Heroes. They unleashed the first phantoms onto the world and plundered, ravaged many surrounding nations. They built great mountain-spanning Citadels using golems powered by souls of people they subjugated. Their depravity was limitless and the other Empires on their borders decided to unite against them, to strike them down once and for all, from every side.”

I looked back at the Valley of Death with a frown. It seemed like Novazem had its first magical world war with rather disastrous consequences.

“Stars fell from the firmament of the sky. The world was set aflame and all of humanity nearly perished. The magogenic zones are scars left across Novazem by the Great Mage War - ruins of ancient cities and battlefields. For a hundred years, the sun was hidden behind thick clouds of darkness and humanity clung to life only thanks to magic."

Nuclear winter? I thought. It had to be.

"It was called the Age of Darkness. Generations after, survivors rose from the ashes, emerged from the deep catacombs and rebuilt civilization, united under one common goal - to survive the onslaught of the invisible demons unleashed by the Inians.”

“The Gregarius Imperium?” I asked.

“One of the first nations that was able to recover,” Kliss nodded. “One of the first to collectively use hex-lanterns and tower beacons to drive away the ghosts and the endless night. Emperor Gregarion the First ended the Shadows that fell across all of Novazem. Walled cities like Cessna were constructed to keep phantoms at bay.”

“What was it like in Cessna Academy?” I inquired.

“Tough but fair,” she replied. “Cessna is a beautiful town, constantly filled with many people going about their lives. Some are Citizens of the Imperium and are allowed to own property, the rest take care of their needs. There are magitek machines on every street, horseless carriages that run on mana crystals. Imposing buildings of magisteel, glass and stone. White hex-beacons and message-broadcasting orbs on every corner.”

She sighed wistfully as she painted an image for me with her words, describing cafes and avenues, markets and buildings and people. Mana-powered artificer-designed engines, traffic of men and machines and clockwork towers.

“It sounds really interesting. I’d like to go to Cessna someday,” I said. “Study at the Academy of Magic, learn what they know… magnify my knowledge.”

“You still can. You’re young,” she muttered. “Anyone can… all it takes to join the Empire is a Vow-free soul. But beware - all you have to do... is to accept the Citizen’s Vow into your heart and become someone like... me.”

I didn’t tell her about the three Vows hanging on my soul. I'd have to figure out how to cut them off or conceal them if I applied to study in Cessna.

“If there are people in Cessna who designed all of these magitek machines you told me about, are there Wizards who can design new spells... with mathematics?” I asked curiously.

“Yes,” she said. “There are specialist Wizards in Cessna who can design magitek tools and spells. Artificers and Arithmancers. You’d fit right in, I suppose. Personally, I don’t know Arithmancy that well, there was a course offered about it in second year and I didn't understand half of it.”

“Do you miss Cessna?” I asked.

“More than anything,” she sniffed. “But I know that I can never get back my carefree student days there. Even my future there is barred. Everyone l knew is now too high level compared to me. They would see me as an utter... failure, feel nothing but pity for me at best. My parents are... extremely disappointed in me. Nobody understands why I stay in Skyisle.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“For?”

“For taking your future and your family away from you with a Vow,” I said.

“I… don’t understand. Was it not Delta who…” She uttered in confusion.

“No, it was me.” I said. “It’s always been me. Delta is my assistant - most of the time, I tell her what to do.”

“But you were five months old!” Kliss paled.

“I was the smartest baby in Skyisle.” I nodded. “I was the one who Rewound you ten minutes into the past. I designed the device that held your armor on the floor. You failed to Identify it, because it doesn't use magic.”

“Equality almighty!” Kliss blurted, covering her mouth.

“I can make other tools like it, if you help me out.” I said. “Make power, light up the world without mana.”

“Power without mana? How can this be?!” She stared at me in bewilderment. “I don’t understand…”

“It’s called science, Kliss,” I said. I dug in my pocket and pulled out a small, semi-porous sodium rock which I had made earlier with [Create-Modify]. It took Delta about an hour to find the tiniest bit of sodium from the rocks beneath the village to get the necessary data for creating the alkali metal also known as natrium.

I presented the white rock to Kliss. “Here - go ahead and Identify if this has magic in it.”

The Overseer took the rock in her left hand and shot an [Identify LV 99] spell at it from her armacus. “It’s a rock. There’s nothing magical or interesting about it.”

“I bet you a thousand gold that this rock will set water on fire,” I said.

“What? That’s ridiculous!” She huffed. “It’s a rock!”

She shot another Identify spell at the sodium to make sure that I wasn’t messing with her. “I guess… there could be a level 100 no-spy hexagram inside it that I can’t detect…”

“Hexagrams don’t work if they’re disrupted, correct?” I asked.

Kliss nodded.

“So if that rock is crushed into dust, there’s no possible way it can set water on fire, right?” I said. “You up for that bet?”

“Sure,” Kliss turned the rock over in her hand. I noted that she looked like she was just humoring me.

“Crush the rock over that puddle,” I told her. “And let the dust fall into the water.”

She easily crushed the sodium rock with her bare hand, letting the dust rain down over the water.

With a hiss, sodium ignited as soon as it touched the surface of the thin puddle. White smoke bloomed into the air and the water caught fire.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Kliss jumped backwards, staring at the burning water with eyes as wide as two cups. Brilliant orange sparks exploded into the air as bits of sodium detonated, setting more water on fire.

“I believe someone owes me a thousand gold,” I said smugly.

“But that’s… that’s impossible!” Kliss cried. She stared at the burning water and then back at me. “How?! HOW?!!”

“It’s called an exothermic reaction,” I commented.

“But… but… there’s no mana in that rock! This stands against everything I’ve learned at the academy!” She blinked in absolute confusion. “How’s the water on fire? What’s making it burn?! Where's the hexagram?! Did you hide it under that puddle?!”

Kliss shot an Identify spell at the puddle, leaned towards it trying to spot the shimmer of magic. There wasn't any.

“Energy stored within the rock is released upon contact with water. You’re aware how wood burns for a long time if it’s set on fire? It’s kind of similar. A chemical reaction."

The puddle slowly stopped burning.

“But... there’s no wood! It’s water!!! Water is cold and wet!” Kliss rubbed her face, looking at the white smoke blooming from the puddle. “This doesn’t make any sense! Am I dreaming? Did I die and wake up in hell where a twelve year old is torturing me?!”

"You can pay off the thousand gold by being in my employ as my second assistant," I smirked.

Kliss pinched herself and yelped as she did. Then she looked back at the smoking puddle and back at me. “So, you really can do impossible things.”

"No. I can do 'possible' things. You just lack the knowledge to correctly categorize and apply them. Anyone can do this! A chemical reaction doesn't require magic or soul-songs. You were the one to drop the rock into the puddle, not me." I explained.

She fell silent for several minutes, pondering things over.

“You know, you did the right thing twelve years ago,” she finally said. “Had you never put a Friendship Vow on me, I would have never realized how bound and blind I was. I really didn’t have a choice but to kill you,” she continued. “...and I wouldn't have stopped. I would have had to kill again and again if I returned to Cessna and moved up the ranks. Perhaps, I would have been a lot happier, sure… I would have kept on sleep-walking blindly, without a care in the world, letting the Vow do all of the hard parts… being its little, obedient marionette.”

She sat down on a moss-covered rock and looked across the mountainous landscape with a sad smile. “I get it now. I deserve this… all of this. No matter how much I hate it... Skyisle is my new home. I’m going to have to make do with what I have here… at least I won’t be bored anymore, not with you around.”

She glanced my way. I shot her a smile.

“For twelve years I’ve lived in utter despair, had no hope," she confessed.

She made another deep pause.

“You just showed me something impossible. You just gave me a tiny mote light in the darkness, a hope that you can free me. I’m going to cautiously follow it... I'm going to figure out exactly what you are. I don’t understand how you can break a Vow, Dante… but if what you said is really true, if you’ve spoken to a god and lived, if you have secret knowledge from beyond the stars, then maybe… you’re really the only person in this world that can make a difference.”

“I don’t know if I can make a difference,” I said. “But the least I can do is try.”